Half-way Mark!

So this week, I’m officially 20 weeks pregnant.  That’s half way done!  I’m so happy that this pregnancy is flying by for me.  I truly dislike being pregnant.  I’m always very uncomfortable, sick, and generally miserable.  This baby has been easier than Henry was.  Either just because it’s going faster, because I’m not working, because I’m far less stress emotionally, or a combination of all three.  Whatever the reason, I am grateful. 

I loved Genny’s blogtoday about Getting Ready for Baby.  Like Genny & Ted, we are planning a homebirth.  I am very very excited about this and happy with our choice.  Our midwife is Julie Hughes, who’s site is currently being updated, but you get the idea. We will be ordering a birth kit similar to the one Genny talks about in her blog, and it is one of the things I’m really looking forward to.  I know it’s just weird medical stuff, mostly uninteresting or, at the very least, unexciting to most, but I really love getting packages in the mail.  And the idea of  a whole kit  filled with birth goodies coming in one big box in the mail just excites the tar out of me!    I can’t wait to order ours. 

We too are getting ready for baby, but not with the same… I don’t know what to call it?   Urgency? as the Lunds.  Since we still have 20 weeks to go, we have not been in much of a hurry yet.  Things we have been doing are planning how we are rearranging the rooms of the house (the kids will share a room after the baby sleeps through the night… which means we’ll be swapping rooms: ours to the office, the office to Henry’s room, and Henry and the new baby to our current room).  We’ve started transitioning Henry from crib to toddler bed, and will eventually switch him to a twin size “big boy” bed so we can reclaim the crib for the new baby.   We’ve cleaning out the house (ok, I’ve been doing this.  Even Rick says I am nesting) of all kinds of clutter and built up junk that we have hung on to.  I’ve done major purging in our laundry/utility area, everyone’s closets and dressers, as well as the office.  With so much more to do.  Yes, the nesting bug has bitten me hard. 

I’ve been reading a lot again, of course, and Rick has been on me to practice my kegel exercises and nap when Henry’s napping.  Of course, I never nap when Henry’s napping.  I blog instead.    But so far, I’ve read (or reread)  Husband Coached Childbirth by Robert A. Bradley, Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way by Susan McCutcheon-Rosegg, and Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Sarah J. Buckley. 

We recently got the book Hello Baby to read with Henry, and he really has been enjoying it.  It’s the only children’s book featuring a home birth that we have been able to find anywhere, and it’s currently out of print.  I think I should write one myself and make a mint.     In one picture, Hello Baby shows the baby’s head as it’s emerging from the mother.  You would not believe the amount of convincing it took from Rick and I to get Henry to agree that it was a baby and not a “pemie” (penis).  According to Henry, everyone, including me, has a pemie.  We have not been able to convince him otherwise, and I have not been motivated to show him yet that I do not, in fact, have one.  I figure, if he watches me give birth, he’ll finally see. 

And on that note, that is something we are still debating.  I’d like Henry to be there when the baby is born, but if it upsets him or if he’s hungry or whiny or whatever, we will need to have a plan B.  That has been a trick to figure out exactly what plan B will entail.  At least we still have a few months to think on it. 

Well, this has gotten wordy and distracted, and taken most of Henry’s nap time, so I better call it enough.  I didn’t even talk about Valentine’s Day or our plans for this weekend (our anniversary).  Well, another post on another day I guess.